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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (March 31, 2017)
1C THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, MARCH 31, 2017 CONTACT US Laura Sellers | Weekend Editor lsellers@dailyastorian.com WEEKEND BREAK FOLLOW US facebook.com/ DailyAstorian CONFESSIONS of a NOTORIOUS DILETTANTE A blue banjo and the wonder of learning By ED HUNT For The Daily Astorian W hen I was a kid, I used to read encyclopedias. We had two sets. The World Book 1975 was my favorite. It had a few color pho- tos and it was amazing. Pick a let- ter off the shelf, open the book up and learn about something. I loved learning about things. I still do. My parents set the example. My dad started his career on a slide rule and fi nally retired just a few years ago using 3D print- ers and computer modeling. From moon boots to grocery checkout scanners to actual jetpacks for astronauts, my dad enjoyed a rich and varied career in the world of industrial design. The trick, he always says, is to never stop learning. As a newspaper reporter, learn- ing new things about the world was part of my job — the abso- lute best part. As the editor on an online news site during the dot- com boom, I taught myself the nuts and bolts of how to design and publish using HTML code. We were trying to create a model of sustainable success on the web before anyone thought there was a future in online journalism. The dot-com bubble burst, I changed careers. Whole new world Submitted Photo The writer Ed Hunt plays his open-backed banjo while dog Wendy wanders by. Ed Hunt/For The Daily Astorian An open-backed banjo from a kit. The most important part of failure is learning, and sometimes the most important part of learning is failing . Ed Hunt works on his open-backed banjo. Ed Hunt For The Daily Astorian Next came nursing, where I went from an expert in one fi eld to a complete novice in another. I had a whole world of medicine that I had to understand. Continuing education is required for doctors and nurses because medical science changes rapidly. If you don’t keep learn- ing, you aren’t practicing good medicine. I try to teach myself how to fi x things. Often, doing it yourself is barely worth the time and mate- rials, but learning how to do it is where I fi nd the reward. The internet, of course, makes all this much easier. When we bought this old house 24 years ago we had to learn restoration and repairs ourselves. I thumbed through old handy man books that I picked up at thrift stores to teach myself the basics of getting an old house livable. My motto is: “T here is noth- ing I don’t know how to do, only things I haven’t learned yet.” I am a notorious dilettante. I’ve taken fl ying lessons and classes in wood carving. Sometimes I fi nd a new skill or area is just not for me. Often I just fail. A couple of years ago, I bought a bass guitar and tried to teach myself how to play. I’d picked bass because I played trombone in school. I fi gured I’d try bass because I could still sort of read the bass clef. It didn’t work. Learning from failure The most important part of failure is learning, and sometimes the most important part of learn- ing is failing. This year I swallowed that fail- ure and am trying something new — I have always been in love with the sound of the banjo. Prob- ably a side effect of watching too much “Hee Haw” when I was a kid. I knew nothing about it other than I liked the sound. The open backed banjo is a perfect accom- paniment to a rainy day. With a Christmas gift card I bought a kit from Backyard Ban- jos and I’m trying to teach myself to play. I had to start by putting the banjo together myself — stain- ing the wood and assembling the components to make the musical W riter’s N otebook instrument. Then I had to learn how to string it and tune it. A few books from the library and an online video lesson plan and I’m starting to actually make music. When the rain forces us inside, it is a great time to open our minds. We have libraries at our fi ngertips, experts a few clicks away. The internet is wonderful, especially if you live in a rural community. It opens up all sorts of opportunities to learn new things. That said, it has its lim- itations. I’ll try my online lessons but I may need to resort to in per- son classes. Lifelong learning Thankfully lifelong learning opportunities abound in our com- munity. We have two excellent community colleges and amaz- ing libraries as well as a host of opportunities for learning all man- ner of skills to test and expand our minds and bodies. I’m dying take a class at the Barbey Maritime Center someday where you can learn everything from building boats to basket weaving. For now, however, I am focused on my little blue banjo. I think it will be good for me. Learning to play a musical instrument at any age seems to confi rm neurological benefi ts. Music keeps our brains young, even if we don’t start taking les- sons until we are much older. One researcher studied the impact of piano lessons on adults between the ages of 60 and 85. According to an article in National Geographic, she found that after six months, those who had received the lessons showed gains in memory, verbal fl uency, information processing, planning ability and other cognitive func- tions when compared to a control group. “People often shy away from learning to play a musical instru- ment at a later age, but it’s defi - nitely possible to learn and play well into late adulthood,” Univer- sity of South Florida researcher Jennifer Bugos explained to National Geographic. “Musical training seems to have a benefi - cial impact at whatever age you start. It contains all the compo- nents of a cognitive training pro- gram that sometimes are over- looked, and just as we work out our bodies, we should work out our minds.” Musical training has been shown to help improve motor skills recovery after a stroke. Other research is ongoing to see whether choir singing can help stave off the advance of dementia. “Music reaches parts of the brain that other things can’t,” Uni- versity of Westminster neuropsy- chologist Catherine Loveday told the Guardian. “It’s a strong cog- nitive stimulus that grows the brain in a way that nothing else does, and the evidence that musi- cal training enhances things like working memory and language is very robust.” So even if I never play a note for anyone other than myself, I’ll still get some benefi t from what- ever neural connections come together during this learning experience. That will help keep my brain in good shape to learn other new skills in the years to come. I’m determined to never stop learning. Ed Hunt is a writer and reg- istered nurse who blogs on medi- cal issues at redtriage.com and on other subjects at theebbtide.blog- spot.com. He lives in Grays River, Washington.